Unguarded AI Agent Autonomy Poses Major Operational Risks, PagerDuty Executive Warns

PagerDuty's AI engineering lead cautions that AI agents deployed without proper guardrails create significant challenges for site reliability engineering.

According to João Freitas, GM and VP of engineering for AI and automation at PagerDuty, the deployment of AI agents without adequate guardrails represents a significant challenge for site reliability engineering (SRE) teams.

As reported by VentureBeat, Freitas highlighted concerns about the growing adoption of AI agents in large organizations. While organizational leaders are seeking major return on investment from AI agents as “the latest wave” of AI development, Freitas characterizes agent autonomy without proper controls as “an SRE nightmare.”

The warning comes as enterprises increasingly look to AI agents as the next frontier in artificial intelligence implementation. However, the article suggests that the pursuit of ROI from these systems must be balanced against operational reliability concerns.

The piece underscores a tension between the promise of autonomous AI systems and the practical challenges they pose for teams responsible for maintaining system stability and reliability in production environments.